Teach your Child Patience and How to Share

Sharing is a really hard concept for toddlers to understand, and quite frankly, I think sharing can be hard for adults as well. I have highlighted my philosophy on sharing and how we have taught our girls to share and play nicely. Use this philosophy to teach your child to share and learn patience for a lifetime of successful relationships!

My Philosophy

I heard someone once say “we don’t just take our coworker’s pen — we ask them if we can borrow it when they are done”. It is so true. As adults, we don’t just go up to someone and say I want that right now and expect that person to just give us what they are using.

An interesting lesson to consider when you apply it to children because I think most parents are so focused on getting their kids to be good at giving up their toys the second another kid wants to play with them.

But when I really thought about it, I think teaching patience is almost more important than teaching your child to always give up their toy. As a toddler mom, I have now completely shifted my focus on getting my children to be okay with waiting for their turn. This, in my opinion has helped them become better at sharing.

When it comes down to it, I personally don’t want to teach my kids that they can have whatever they want whenever they want. And, I believe it is so important to learn the skill of patience.

Here is what has worked for us:

If one child is playing with a toy and the other wants the toy we have a rule that we set a timer. The child who was already playing with the toy can continue to play until the timer goes off, and then they have to switch.  Typically we set a timer for two minutes.  

If the child who wants the toy becomes aggressive and/or tries to steal the toy, they do not get to play, and they have to sit in time out. If the child with the toy will not give up the toy when the timer goes off, they also have to sit in time out. If both children engage in fighting, the toy goes away.

This method has worked very well for us and has taught our kids both patience and the importance of sharing.

Timers for Playroom

Alexa

Kids Timer with visual This timer is really nice because kids can actually see the visual of how much time is left.

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